My Water Post For Today.
Since it is my Son's Birthday, I thought I would combine the two things together. A water post, and a photo of my Son.
This was taken at Walled Lake, in Michigan. It was the 4th of July 2021, and a lovely day to see the lake in action.
My guy turns 32 today. Wow!
October 29th is National Cat Day. No idea why there are so many cat days, but Makenna gets to show off her Halloween look for this one.
The best thing to happen to this family, was the addition of a cat and Makenna definitely helps in that regard.
Now that we are empty nesters, she brings us a reason to get up in the morning (besides retrieving the newspaper from the driveway).
She makes our life better and we appreciate that.
We love you baby.
The camera's are back up on the La Plata station and here is a Jigidi puzzle to celebrate the fact.
You can find it, here at La Plata.
It is 198 pieces, so it took me 1 hour and 43 minutes to get it done.
My Husband was worried about me. lol
A couple of days ago, I lamented the loss of a cross at the Powell Memorial. You can see the post HERE.
I assume the reason why the cross was removed is because they dedicated this plaque to John Wesley Powell, who was the first explorer for the United States to pass this point on the Colorado River.
As the plaque says, he not only passed it once, he returned 3 years later with a different group of explorers.
It sits on a huge pyramid made of Grand Canyon stone and it takes a bit to get up to the top to read it.
The photo we took was behind the pyramid.
This photo was taken in the spring of 1993, just a few months into Metrolink service, which began on October 26, 1992.
I am still amazed at how new and clean the cars are. Trust me, they don't look like that now.
It was my little engineer's first trip on a Metrolink train and over the years, he and I took many trips together.
I am so glad Los Angeles made us connect to downtown first, along with Ventura and San Bernardino.
Here's to many more years, Metrolink.
From Dan Belcher, a remastered version of the never released song The Second Arrangement from the infamous September 17, 2011 rarities concert at the Beacon Theater.
Ah, how technology has improved over the past decade. :-)
I have mentioned this concert many times over the years.
It was probably the absolute best Steely Dan concert I ever saw and as you know (if you know me at all) I have seen a lot of Steely Dan concerts.
Don flubs the final chorus of the song, but minus that small imperfection, a great rendition that the fans can see all these years later.
We had to make a trip into the Valley, because our local DMV is going through a remodel.
My Husband saw that the closest DMV was in Arleta and I took a look and found one in Van Nuys.
Right off the 405 Fwy and 2 blocks away from Sam Woo's!
So off we went and after his DMV work, we headed over to Sam Woo's.
I am pretty sure we have not been there for almost 3 years and I was shocked at how empty it was at 1PM.
By the time we left, the place was full. I felt better that it was making money again.
We had Seafood Hot Pot, Orange Chicken, Pork Fried Rice, and Sweet and Sour Pork which gave us LOTS of left overs.
Then we got our Christmas seafood at the 99 Ranch Market, after we finished.
A win all around.
My Water Post For Today.
Back to Santa Barbara, now that we have returned from The Grand Canyon.
This photo of the harbor area is especially meaningful to me, because it has a whole line of birds flying by.
Adding to the activity in the water itself, it is a lovely photo.
I hope you enjoy.
Back in the spring I found out about a ceramics show in Castaic and I wrote about it HERE.
I went to their Fall ceramics show and once again, I was drawn to Michelle Maga's pumpkins.
Thus, my first purchase was another pumpkin, this time glazed in brown, to match mine.
It is different, but beautiful in its own way.
Later on, I went back to her table (I just couldn't resist) and she had a bunch of things that were marked down. In there was a spoon rest similar to the pumpkins.
Yep, now in my posession.
I also got a wish dish and two cute flowers on small pieces of clay.
All in all, a nice time and maybe someday, I will get to make my own ceramics.
Flagstaff was our destination and our point of departure, so we got to see it both ways.
While out the night of our return, I saw this sign posted on the side of the station.
I knew there were cameras up on the station, but I was not aware that there was signage to alert the non-railfans.
By the way, you can see the PTZ (pan tilt zoom) camera, and if you look close there is a stationary west view camera, too.
Minus the cobblestones on the ground, it was a nice station to visit.
Our lodge was just a few steps away from the mules that are used to take visitors down into the Grand Canyon itself.
We missed a sunset at yavapai point and so we headed back toward our lodge.
As we passed the mules, I stopped the car (no one was behind us) and asked my Husband to take a photo of the mules.
He did so and after a bit of editing, this is what I got from him. Mules and a sunset, what more could I want?
You can click the third photo and find out about the history of the mules of the Grand Canyon.
It is the only place that uses these work animals, that are perfect for the job they do every day.
43 1/2 Years ago my girlfriend and I decided to drive to the West Coast, to try to find jobs in Broadcasting.
On the way we stopped and spent 2 days in The Grand Canyon.
One of the places we walked to, was the Powell Memorial.
The top photo was taken that day.
On Tuesday my Husband and I tried to recreate the photo and when we got to the overlook, we found out that the cross is gone!
I guess for some reason, it has been removed.
If you look close to the left side of the two photos, you can see the same rock formation, proof that we did get to the same place.
Yes, my hair is almost the same, also. Yay me!
Hopefully, as this posts, we will be on a train returning to Los Angeles.
We had a good time in spite of some problems along the way, and took more photos than we probably need, but it meant a lot to us.
I have been to the Grand Canyon twice and my Husband is not sure if he has ever been there.
My major complaint was the lack of decent signage around the park. Oh well, we saw things and didn't get to other things. That's life.
We Should have been boarding at Flagstaff around 8:30PM Pacific Time, which was too late for my East Coast peeps.
See you on the other side.
Day 2 started out with us in search of some breakfast.
We ended up at the Grand Canyon Village and after walking around a little bit, checking out the morning views, we found the Fred Harvey Burger Restaurant inside the Bright Angel Lodge.
Breakfast was OK and after we finished, we walked over to the beginning of the Bright Angel Trail area.
We felt we had done enough for the morning and it was off to do laundry adjacent to the Mather Campground. The same campground that my girlfriend and I stayed at 43 years ago.
The laundry was inexpensive and the groceery store was not as bad as the gift shops in The Village. They seem to realize that the campers are usually younger and have less money to spend.
We came back to our room and after an afternoon rest, and we hope to get to The Powell Memorial to round out the day.
We have arrived at The Grand Canyon.
It has been 43 years since my last visit and I am glad I made it.
I was a little worried about the weather situation after watching how bad the rain got in Phoenix last night, but the clouds seemed to be dissipating the last time I looked.
We ended up hitting a tiny bit of drizzle once in a while, so nothing at all to worry about.
What was worrisome, was one of our tires was at 27 psi, almost right from the start of the journey and there were no houses, gas stations or cell service in the area.
When we came to where our road merged with the road from Williams, Arizona, there was a gas station and we got some air. Big sigh of relief from this driver.
We took the afternoon off and figure we will do our walking tomorrow, when the weather is a bit better, since sunshine is forecast.
We are happy to be here and plan to totally enjoy our time.
